


My Heart Goes Starved

by tonsilfoodcourt



Series: Assassins AU [1]
Category: Tiny Meat Gang (Band)
Genre: "Keep Ya Dick Fat" video aesthetics, Alternate Universe - Assassins & Hitmen, Bi Noel, Blonde Cody, Death Wish, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, Implied/Referenced Torture, Is It Love Or Is It Touch Starvation And Trauma?, M/M, Panic Attacks, Pining, References To Past Noel/Aleena, References To Past One-Sided Cody/Devon, Slow Burn
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-05
Updated: 2019-04-05
Packaged: 2020-01-05 05:21:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,745
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18359441
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tonsilfoodcourt/pseuds/tonsilfoodcourt
Summary: No one says it, but they don’t have to for Noel to recognize "keeping Cody contained" as his main gig, the killing just gravy on the side.Assassins AU, slow burn. As hit men, Noel and Cody couldn't be more different.





	My Heart Goes Starved

**Author's Note:**

It’s fitting that Noel learns both of their names at once. They’re two pieces to a single puzzle: Noel and Cody. Cody and Noel.

Someone in ops must have been feeling clever, two short names for two short assets.

(He knows what Cody looks like before they meet; it’s all there in the file they give him to memorize, the page before the travel itinerary. _Height 5’8 - Race CAU - Hair BLN - Eyes HAZ,_ but in the photo they look gray-green.)

Noel knows better than to ask what Cody’s last alias was, whether it suited him better or just differently. It’s not like it would change anything.

The memories aren’t as easy to delete as old names in a database, though.

\--

Their differences are mostly obvious from the start, some more superficial than others; by design, they don’t really even seem like guys who’d hang out. Noel’s look opens employee entrances and loading gates, grants him an invisibility he needs. Cody’s look gets him past the security desk at the yacht club without a pat-down - but _damn_ if it’s not high maintenance.

Noel’s watched Cody work a hotel room blow dryer a few times and eventually has to comment on the vain foolishness of it, that cool guy _Hitler youth on the beach_ cut. Cody probably has his handler convinced it makes him look non-threatening, mundane like any other Ivy League legacy student fuckboy in a crowd. (It definitely works for that, but at what cost?)

“A guy could get ahold of those bangs and pull and then you'd just be _fucked,_ dude.”

“Yeah,” Cody actually _winks_ at him, combs fingers back through his hair with a flourish. “And ain't _that_ just the fuckin _dream!”_

If Noel shivers, it’s only because the a/c kicks back in just then.

\--

“Two _years_ working alone since your last partner.” Cody says _alone_ like it’s a punishment, and maybe it was. “Not that I’m complaining, but why even put you back in rotation at this point?”

“I assume it's less about me and more about you being a pain in the ass.” This keeps happening, like Cody _likes_ returning bloody from every assignment. Noel leans in close to line up the edges of the new gash and tries not to be distracted by the way his breath moves the light, downy hair on Cody’s stomach. There’s a coffee stain birthmark near his navel.

“Jesus.” Cody hisses as Noel pushes the needle through, but he doesn’t pull away from Noel’s hands. “You’re probably right, I hear I'm a needy little bitch.”

“I can't see how you’d get _that_ rep.” Noel ties off the row of stitches, rubs a thumb over the seam to be sure it’s smooth and Cody actually _sighs. (Needy,_ he’d said.) Says “So do you get hard during your HQ medical, too, or am I special?”

“Actually yeah, sometimes.” Cody grins like he's never felt shame in his life, all teeth. Noel’s starting to see the cracks in that act, though, the places where the paint is thin. “Body like this, do you really think I'd be out here fuckin’ killing people if I had a normal outlet for human touch?”

\--

“There’s really nothing to say about Cody,” he’ll say in debrief, convincingly as he can, and will try not to notice the way his handler hesitates, scrutinizing, before jotting her notes.

It’s not that he wants to hide anything (he does), he just doesn’t know where to even _begin._

(Protocol aside, sometimes Noel thinks ops _wants_ its assets at least a little bit infatuated with their partners. How else had he and Aleena gotten away with it for so long?)

\--

Cody likes to watch Noel clean his guns. Or maybe he just likes to watch _Noel,_ and Noel just happens to clean his guns often - because it’s practical, it’s good discipline, it helps pass the hours at generic hotel room number 5000 in a series of infinity.

It’s relaxing, in its way. Knowing everything is where it should be, because he put it there, checked and then checked again to be sure.

Or it _was_ relaxing.

After a while it’s started to feel like another performance: choreographed routine of calmly snapping on gloves, handling each disassembled part, absolutely _neutrally_ warming the gun oil poured out onto his fingers.

He never looks up at Cody, audience of one, in those moments. He never has to.

\--

An emerging theme, subtle as a grenade: Noel has always been disciplined with his shit, downright _tidy_ \- gloves and disinfectant and nothing but the clean smells of oil and gunsmoke in his zone. Whereas Cody seems to specifically enjoy being as messy and shocking as possible.

Which is to say, he’s resourceful. Even disarmed he’s a menace.

(“Have I been _boring_ to you, all this time?” Noel can’t help asking his handler, watching her leaf through the supplementary appendix to another _Cody learned broken glass makes ouchies_ report. “Is that it? All this Odd Couple bullshit so the debriefs get more interesting?”)

Only _Cody_ would appear at their rendezvous in someone else's sweatshirt, hood up and doing nothing to hide the blood he’s got splattered up to his eyebrows. Too casual, fucking _showoff,_ saying “He got to both blades but nobody ever thinks about my _teeth,_ baby!” and smiling in a way that lets Noel vividly imagine him lunging for a man's throat.

Cody picks a dead man’s DNA evidence out of his gums with a nail and Noel thinks about holding him down by the hair in disinfectant, or about just falling dick-first into the trap of that vicious, sharp mouth. Maybe both at the same time, like his furtive masturbatory sessions needed to be any weirder. “Great job, Dracula, but have you heard of Hep C?”

Cody leans over the center console of their getaway car and allows his face to be wiped down, laughs something cynical into Noel's latex-protected palm. “You really think either of us needs to worry about living long enough to ever get sick?”

\--

Ultimately it’s _Noel_ who ends up being the fuckup, the one to unbalance their careful equilibrium. If he has any excuse, in retrospect, it’s muscle memory - the autopilot that pushes him through the door of their hotel room, briskly changes out his dirty gloves for clean and sits him down on the end of a bed to ask “So what needs a bandaid and a kiss tonight? Fall off your skateboard again?”

(Muscle memory and something even more inevitable, coiled warm in the pit of his stomach like a need.)

Cody actually has the nerve to look _startled._ He shrugs, gestures down at bloody clothes destined for the incinerator. “For once, none of this is me.”

And Noel can’t help the _disappointment,_ the way the moment stretches out between them into some kind of mutual acknowledgement. Cody looks away first. Coward. _“Fuck,_ Noel.”

He opens his mouth to say more and Noel _knows_ it will only be something fucked up - an offer to grab a knife and fix it now so they’ll have the excuse, an apology for being uninjured, a promise not to come back whole and unmarked _ever again,_ and rules are rules are _Rules_ but “Dude, just - shut up and come over here anyway.”

The seconds stretch into fucking eternity while Noel waits for Cody to consider. He keeps talking, nervous habit. “I just want to make sure, for my report. And I uh. want to check those stitches from the Phoenix job.” Like Cody isn’t on a first name basis with half the medical staff at HQ, like any of this is believable.

But then Cody really just _obeys,_ yanks off his shirt in one fluid motion almost _violent_ with hurry and crosses the room to him. Says “Not a scratch, see?” like it’s a question only Noel can answer.

The old scars stand out pale on Cody’s arms, his stomach, one nearly invisible there under his jaw (and under Noel’s fingertips, light drag of friction where latex meets skin). The newer ones, _Noel’s,_ are still pink and -

And as it turns out, a little raised under his tongue when Cody finally _(finally)_ growls wordless frustration, pulls Noel face forward and _down,_ palms heavy on the back of his head. He’s greedy, of course he is, with whatever luxuries he’s allowed.

\--

If Noel hadn’t asked first, would Cody have been content to keep treading water like that forever, restrained? Was that what it had been like with his last partner?

(“They were too similar, ultimately,” was all his handler had said about those circumstances, but the body was barely cold before Cody's new assignment came down from leadership, as Noel had understood it. “You won't have that problem, I don't expect.”

Cody had called him _Devon_ exactly once, laughed it off with a line like _goddamn I'm dumb, too many concussions_ and then disappeared for enough hours that Noel was pacing, debating whether to call it in before he heard the key card click in the door.

 _I still miss mine too,_ he hadn’t said. It would've been hollow.)

\--

Injury rates drop; Noel actually gets a commendation from leadership. Gold star sticker on a chart somewhere, middle of the row labeled _Keep Cody out of trouble._

It's not that he doesn't have a death wish anymore, Cody assures him, tone light. (“Don’t we all?”) It’s just that if he cuts down on his recovery there’ll be more frequent assignments, fewer idle hours pacing in his Venice Blvd apartment. Less time alone, he doesn’t say.

“Sorry,” he says, like Noel would reproach him for it. “You’re stuck with me now.” It’s cramped on one twin bed but pushing both together feels premeditated, a commitment. Noel should get up soon, move to his own side of the room before his arm falls asleep.

\--

Weeks on and Noel can’t say he’s put his bare hands on Cody once. It's not that he minds, exactly, but the first aid pretext is starting to feel like a barrier with _intent._

Cody considers this fact on his back, languid, then reaches to tuck warm fingertips under the wrist of one glove, massage the pulse point there. At first it’s like he might actually help Noel take it off - but then after a beat he just smiles guilelessly _(liar)_ up at him and says "Still. Better to keep them on for now, you never know when someone might dust me for prints."

Fair enough. Kink or defense mechanism, fair enough. They’ve got the time, and Noel can only imagine they’ll work up to it.

\--

Sometimes Noel changes his gloves a few times in a few minutes for no other reason than that Cody will sit up and _really_ pay attention while he does it, whatever hand weight or lock picking kit or Stephen King novel he's been occupied with dropping forgotten into his lap for the moment. Cat to a laser pointer.

Cody isn’t the only one who knows how to flirt and play dumb about it. If he likes the gloves so much, he can have them. “Cody? You good?”

“Yeah…just.” Noel isn’t sure how much of that blush is real and what’s a character, but it suits him. He adds a scowl, piqued. _“Yeah,_ Noel, I'm good. I’m _real good.”_

“Well, great!” Noel reaches into the box for another pair of size Ms, wonders how much longer he can keep this pattern up before ops will start flagging his expense reports for review.

\--

They aren't supposed to have contact off the field, but of course they eventually do.

Cody's apartment is surprisingly (or unsurprisingly) similar to Noel's, basic and sparse to reflect the limited time he spends there. There’s one photo taped to the fridge door, a few grinning teenage boys in speedo swimsuits. No labels on the front, nothing written on the back.

Cody comes back from his bedroom in time to catch Noel looking it over, of course. “This is you?”

“Nah,” there’s beer in the fridge, a small, safe rebellion against their carefully prescribed meal plans. (Noel accepts one and tries not to notice their bare fingers brushing on the bottle neck, the sensual jolt, strangeness of it. So _that’s_ what it feels like.) “My larval stage maybe. But who even knows that guy anymore, I don't even hardly remember his name.”

“You're good at that, you know,” Noel takes a pull from the bottle, irrationally feeling a little drunk already. “Acting like nothing ever bothers you.”

He says it like a jab, ongoing hunt for a chink in that armored _simple guy, likes making alive things into dead things_ persona, but Cody grins incandescent like he’d just _known_ Noel would be the one to finally, _really_ appreciate him. “Wanna know the secret?”

\--

Noel hasn’t ever seen a lie detector machine outside the HQ debrief rooms before. “You _practice?”_

“Only way to get better at shit, man.” Cody catches his look and interprets whatever’s in Noel's eyes incorrectly. “I haven't been lying to _you.” Only to my handler,_ _only to the staff psychiatrists_ isn't said, but there isn't anything else to fill in that blank with.

No wonder Cody got reassigned active so fast after the funeral, rushed through only the most minimal rehab and reprogramming.

No wonder Cody’s so opaque.

Noel shrugs, deliberately not too eager. He’s got his own weaknesses he’d hide if he were able - maybe a few he'd lie about even to Cody given the chance. “You gonna show me, or?”

\--

"Here's a fun fact: one time I no touch nutted watching an episode of House," Cody says, like reading the weather report, “Surgery scenes, man, they get me _every time._ Even the really fake ones.”

Noel checks the readings, familiar mix of _unsettled_ and _vaguely aroused_ crawling up from the base of his spine. "Not a lie?"

Triumph. Glib motherfucker. "It _is_ a lie, it wasn't no touch. And you know I watch that shit for the high def hand porn, not the _blood.”_

Noel shouldn't find that so charming. "Fucking _freak."_

\--

Cody's pillowcase smells like him. It’s striking after so much starch and no-name hotel detergent. It’s _nice._

\--

No one says it, but they don’t have to for Noel to recognize "keeping Cody contained" as his main gig, the killing just gravy on the side. It used to bother him, being relegated to _The Cody Ko Show’s_ supporting talent after years as a successful one man act - but it’s grown to suit him, or he's grown to suit it.

(Noel's body count is _still_ higher, and by a good margin.)

Cody _needs_ that containing sometimes, not just in the field. He'll be good, normal and then suddenly he _won’t_ be, he’ll be pushing into the cramped hotel bathroom after Noel like he’s being chased, yanking aside the shower curtain and sandwiching himself tight into the scant space between Noel's body and the beige-yellow tile. He’ll squeeze his eyes shut silently under the spray, trembling child willing away the monsters under his bed.

Eventually Noel will feel Cody's breathing slow where their chests are pressed, shoulders untensing and he’ll know Cody’s managed to re-wind whatever had been unspooling inside. Noel could probably step away if he wanted, let Cody towel off and go.

He won’t.

They don't talk about any of that without the lie detector between them so they can call it _practice,_ and then Cody has no real answers to offer.

Noel could probably guess if he had to, anyway. Ultimately they aren't _so_ different, not where it counts.

\--

Sometimes they still get sent out alone, versatile multipurpose assets that they are. Noel makes sure to be slick and efficient on these jobs, in and out with minimal fuss. He might knock down 3 guys with 1 bullet if he’s feeling particularly fancy, but he’s always _discreet_ in the end, unmarked. Cody never even hears about those bodies unless Noel tells him. Until Noel tells him.

(It's not that he _brags,_ but maybe he enjoys the jealous edge to Cody's “you really _snapped_ on this one, huh” and the possessive, claiming way Cody will turn over each detail, more thorough debrief than any he'll have at HQ. The terse critique of his lie detector performance - “False, bitch, you _stuttered”_ \- it’s a novelty, is all. A different kind of devotion.)

Cody's kills Noel would know anywhere; they’re fucking brutal as a _rule,_ rich fodder for what passes for workplace gossip in their field. “The administration _likes_ that," Cody will insist, because he’s smug about the reputation he's built for himself - HQ’s pretty little jackhammer, their hacksaw in a petite blue Tiffany box. "It sends a message."

"What possible message could they send, having you give a guy a frontal lobotomy with his own kid’s curly straw?"

"'Don't fuck with me,' for one thing,” Cody is dismissive as always, never much cares to question the whys or hows of things he doesn’t control. He refocuses his attention pointedly on the console between them, eyes following the lines running to nodes on Noel's skin. “So would you still kill me if you got the order? Put a bullet between my eyes like a good boy?"

Noel imagines Cody in his crosshairs. Imagines Cody in his bed, soft snores and the way he curls close in his sleep, unguarded. So Noel says _yeah, sure,_ but his heart rate spikes, the reading comes back damning.

Cody smiles like he’s won something poisoned. Probably they both have. “You _pussy.”_

Noel could ask Cody the same question, but Cody has the truth machine figured out back to front by now - the only time he’s ever read abnormal Noel had brought up his family. (Fucking _irrelevant,_ Cody had snapped, why would HQ ask questions about something they already have a recruitment file the size of a phone book on?)

With Cody, Noel can't look to the manual. He just has to trust, look for meaning between the lines.

\--

Noel, perhaps naively, likes to say that no matter how humble your situation, there will always be dignity in whatever you’ve kept clean and crisp. (He isn't religious anymore, of course, but if he was that would be his core tenet, point one of his catechism.)

Cody, so _refreshingly_ unwilling to filter his opinions for _Noel,_ or maybe just spoiling for a fight to fill the time, calls that a stupid lie poor immigrants tell their kids. Maybe that stings a little when it hits home. "End of the day, we're all just covering up what disgusting bags of blood and shit we are. The ones in pressed suits bleed out exactly the same, and usually they deserve it even _more."_ The venom in his voice says there’s more than professional experience underneath that line, if Noel were to ask about it.

He doesn’t ask. It isn’t _the point of the exercise,_ not this round. "Well, I'm at least allowed to be selective about whose blood and _bullshit_ I endure and whose I don't, ok?"

"You're a fucking _romantic,_ Noel. I'm swooning.” Cody only pushes like this because he _cares,_ is what he’d say if Noel tapped out now. His handler wouldn’t go any easier. “Should I report that fatal flaw to our friends in ops?"

He breathes in, breathes out, doesn’t react inappropriately to that bait. Barely a blip on the readout. “You do whatever you gotta do, man. Nothing about it’s slowing me down yet.”

(Yet.)

\--

They’re both fucking romantics, whatever that’s worth.

Cody, holding a struggling security guard's nose and mouth shut, is telling Noel over the mic that "We’re basically more married than _married_ people, forget about the party and the paperwork.”

He pauses to make a soft shushing sound over muffled protests, tut reassuringly to his patient, and Noel could never accuse Cody of not enjoying his work. “I mean go _off_ I guess, eat cake and shit, but what the fuck does 'till death do us part' really even _mean_ to a couple of rich socialites?

“And I _would_ fucking die for you, you know,” Cody says, confessionally, while someone else’s husband fucking dies, gently cradled to his chest and then lowered to the ground behind a parked car. Noel should be so lucky.

He screws on his rifle scope and thinks about what he'd say if Cody even expected a response (if Cody wasn't blatantly taking advantage of the fact that Noel needs stealth and _can't_ respond right now. He could've easily brought this up in the goddamn _car),_ but then Cody pauses and says ”Well hey, our _boy_ invited more friends than I thought,” alarmed faux cheer and everything goes sideways.

\--

 _“How_ _many_ more guys?” Noel can't help hissing, remote and helpless in his perch - great sight line to the still-empty sweetheart table in the mostly-empty reception hall, but he's early to this party and clearly late, too fucking late to whatever Cody has walked into.

Cody is supposed to have the _easy_ job tonight: clear the garage, impersonate a bored valet and keep tabs on who's coming and going as the wedding party arrives. Maybe rifle through a few glove boxes if he's feeling frisky (a mob wedding begs to be looted for intel and HQ just _loves_ it when they do extra credit).

 _“How about I just put my hands on my head where you can see em right now, okay?”_ Cody sounds muffled, like he's trying to remove his earpiece without being detected. If he's more worried about protecting Noel than about giving him good recon or squaring up to fight, things must be _dire._

Yeah. Dire: _“All six of you here just to greet me, you're not the groomsmen? Crud, wow, I gotta say I'm actually honored.”_ Noel's heart sinks. Six is about three more than Cody could comfortably handle, and assuming they're armed…it's too many by a lot.

He's _terrified_ of that and can't do anything about it. Cody sounds just _fine,_ though, nothing more than mildly inconvenienced right up until the point his _“Come on, I'm cooperating, you really don't need to do_ that _-”_ turns into something ugly, wet and bruised.

\--

Noel listens to the whole beating Cody takes, right up until his earpiece is discovered and then promptly crushed into dead air. He tells himself he's not paralyzed, he's _thinking_ \- and anyway it's actually good, the excruciating length of time it takes, if they'd meant to kill Cody and go it would've been quick.

Noel is supposed to call it in, but he could predict the ops response with a coin flip if he wanted: equal odds between _Abandon objective, come in right now_ and _Stay in position for the kill until you're sure you're compromised_ and both of those options discard Cody like an empty clip to be replaced.

So Noel doesn't call it in. Instead he starts dismantling his setup, repacking his guns into the catering cart, movements forced careful and deliberate as he tries to think through his next steps.

 _Till death do us part,_ Cody had said. _I would die for you,_ he'd said. _Fuck_ that.

\--

Noel's plan ends up being simple, the kind of thing Cody would love: stay sharp, improvise, try not to fucking die.

He has to move fast and hope they didn't shove Cody ragdoll-limp into a trunk and drive him somewhere offsite - he's not authorized to activate an asset’s GPS chip on his own, and never would be for something this _trivial._

He'll figure something out. He has good instincts and there are only so many doors to bust down.

\--

Noel hasn't stabbed anybody in _years._ There's a reason he became a long-range specialist, he _hates_ this shit.

Blood has a very specific smell, one Noel realizes he associates with Cody, lately. A high concept cologne: Iron filings and sweat. Brief, damp kisses by the trash compactor that he always recoils from, too slowly, if only because they're _at work._ Nostalgia.

He hasn't stabbed or _been_ stabbed by anybody in years. The paperwork is gonna be a nightmare.

\--

Cody's never seen Noel bleed. He’ll be delighted, assuming they get out: _I generally prefer flowers, you know, but this is real nice too._

\--

His adrenaline is veering him dangerously close to panic, the kind of shit his handler would scrutinize and maybe even send back for psych eval, but his instincts are _good_ and he's in control, just has to ground himself in training and let the rest of it, the conscious stuff, go. He's just taking impressions now, he'll sort it all out later for the field report.

There's the small dressing room, cleared, each threat individually neutralized.

There's Cody, clotted gore like raspberry jam in his hair, already out of his restraints and jamming his dislocated thumb back into its socket, shaking the feeling back into his hands like he does this every weekend. “Fuck, but aren't _you_ a sight for sore eyes.”

A red stain is spreading out on Noel's caterers uniform when he looks down. Cody's touch there is light, and then firm on his shoulders guiding him to sit. Noel sits.

Lips, tacky with blood, pressed to his forehead so _gently_ Noel shuts his eyes. “Time to stop hogging the glory and let _me_ do the prince charming bit for a minute.”

Maybe when this is over he'll appreciate the chance to watch Cody at work in his element - careful but efficient as he navigates the chaos they've sown, bodies stacked and covered out of sight. Pockets emptied, keys palmed. Quick flip through identity documents. A dead man's jacket zipped on with the hood up, second one tossed in Noel's direction, “put this on.”

Before they go, Cody spits on the hem of his shirt and uses it to mop blood spray off Noel's face, and the fact that Noel just holds his breath and _lets_ him do it, barely a shudder, must be either the sweetest gesture of trust he's ever made or the most troubling.

\--

It feels wrong when they kiss but Noel isn't surprised, saw the pliers in Combatant #2’s hand when he kicked in the door. What's a back molar or two against the weight of secrets not spilled, of Cody spitting blood out the car window now and laughing that he’d given his name as _Statham comma Jason, fuck you very much,_ told them the earbud was for listening to Logan Paul's podcast. “Honestly, you should've seen their faces when they googled it.”

Noel can tell all of that really means _I love you,_ that Cody would've chewed his tongue off before giving him up, and he's just relieved it didn't come to that.

\--

Their cover story is solid and Noel practices his confidence in the car, trying out a blend of shame at being caught unprepared and certainty they made the best of what they could, within protocol. He's _good_ now, he knows he can say anything with a straight face and even breath, level heartbeat. Enough tension to imply professional embarrassment where appropriate, just like the rubric expects.

With their record, they have no reason to worry.

Cody still makes him say it again and again though, presses two fingers up under Noel's jaw to his pulse point at a stop light. Takes in each recitation of the words “I'm not compromised by any inappropriate feelings for Cody” with a warm, lopsided smile. His jaw is swelling already, purple bruise coming up from the inside.

He's never looked better to Noel.

\--

“That was trash.” They’re recuperating. Who needs aspirin, really, when there are 3hr YouTube playlists to numb the senses? “Even we have better jokes than these idiots.”  
  
Noel doesn’t have it in him to get heated about _internet comedy._ All of his energy is going to healing. (He’ll never know how Cody stands it, the itchiness of a closing wound.) "Maybe that’s our backup career plan.”  
  
_“Fuck_ no,” Cody yawns like he’ll be cat napping again in minutes. He seems to think Noel will do his paperwork if he’s unconscious long enough. "No backups. The real world is too complicated."

“Right. Better to keep things simple, like this.”

(Simple like: they’d been interrogated for _hours._ Noel had resorted to making mental lists to stay grounded, everything within reach, over and over. _Glass of water. Tabletop. Ballpoint pen. (Not Cody.) "It's exactly like I told you, ma'am..." Glass of water. Tabletop. (Not Cody.))_  
  
Cody, within reach again for now, nods. “Let’s keep it just like this.”

**Author's Note:**

> "My heart goes starved" is a line from _The Iliad_ , Achilles' words after the death of Patroclus. 
> 
> aesthetic/mood board nobody asked for can be found [here](https://tastes-like-piss.tumblr.com/post/184017662457/tmg-contract-killer-au-aesthetics) (Noel has nice hands.)
> 
> **** is at least 30% to blame for this. My TMG tumblr is [@tastes-like-piss](https://tastes-like-piss.tumblr.com/) (and [fic tag: assassins au](https://tastes-like-piss.tumblr.com/tagged/fic-tag%3A-assassins-au) is where I dump everything related to this)!
> 
>  
> 
> (Obligatory disclaimer: Cody and Noel are real people with their own agency/lives/relationships/etc and these are just characters styled to look like them! I'm not making ANY statements about those two actual humans, I'm just out here trying to flex my creative writing muscle with character types/dynamics pulled from a pair of content creators I really really like. They would probably hate this, so please nobody send it to them. Thanks!!)


End file.
